Aperture Quarterly
A printed photography journal rebuilt around a single, generous grid.
Independent creative directionfor brands with something to say.
Atelier is a small studio working on identity, editorial and art direction. One director, a handful of long collaborators, and a preference for fewer projects taken further.
- Lisbon, Portugal
- Identity, editorial, direction
- 2018
Three recent projects, each built to be handed over.
Work that holds up after the launch week.
Most identities fail quietly. Not on the day they launch, but eighteen months later, when the person who understood the reasoning has moved on and nobody can tell which rules were decisions and which were accidents.
So the studio designs for the handover. Fewer parts, stated plainly, each one carrying its reason with it. If a system needs the studio in the room to stay coherent, it is not finished.
What the studio is asked for most.
Direction
- Positioning
- Creative strategy
- Naming
- Tone of voice
Identity
- Wordmarks
- Type systems
- Colour
- Guidelines
Editorial
- Books & magazines
- Grid systems
- Print production
- Packaging
Digital
- Portfolio sites
- Design systems
- Motion principles
- Build supervision
We were handed a system we could actually run. A year on, nobody has needed to call the studio to ask what a rule meant.
Atelier is a creative direction studio working with publishers, makers and practices that care how things are made.
The studio has been independent since 2018, after eight years spent inside larger design groups. That experience is the reason it stays small: the best work came from three people in a room with a clear brief, and almost none of it came from the layers built on top.
- Ilva Marchetti, Creative Director
- Lisbon, Portugal
Have something in mind?
The studio takes on a small number of projects each year. A short note about what you are making is enough to start.